


Under the moonlight

by thursdayknight



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Angst, Billy Hargrove is Bad at Communicating, F/F, Fluff, Gay Summer camp, Kissing, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:47:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22733557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thursdayknight/pseuds/thursdayknight
Summary: Steve looks the most beautiful under the moonlight.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley/Heather Holloway
Comments: 21
Kudos: 140
Collections: Harringrove Week of Love





	Under the moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> So this is totally late but I wrote it for the harringrove week of love prompt - summer camp au. 
> 
> This fic is all elysiumwaits' fault.

"Shit, be quiet-"

"Oh, you're so romantic."

"The kids will _hear us!"_

Billy laughs, he can't help it. He runs a hand through Steve's hair and grabs hold, possessive as he can possibly be and making Steve groan with the force of it. "Then stop making so much noise," he says as he pulls Steve's head back and presses him into the tree they're leaning up against with enough force that Steve makes a face as the bark of it digs into his back through his shirt. 

It looks like it hurts but Billy doesn't care.

He can't.

Not when it means he has Steve's neck bared before him like that. Not when the moonlight sneaking through the trees lights his skin like that. Not when he can see the pulse jump under Steve's skin like that. Not when just as he puts his lips to the skin above that pulse he feels it rise to meet him. Not when he can feel Steve's blood sing out _mine_ as Billy sucks a big, garish hickey into his neck.

Steve moans even louder than the last time and again Billy can't help but laugh. It's not even an attractive laugh, it comes out all high pitched and… _giggly._ Fucking Steve, stealing absolutely all his cool.

And worse? He can't even bring himself to really care, not with the way Steve's eyes are shining at him like they are, not with that stupid, goofy smile that spreads itself from Steve's lips to the rest of his face, not when he knows he's responsible for putting it there. 

He's responsible for making someone as sweet, someone as kind, someone as _good_ as Steve smile. He can't be anything other than pleased about that. 

So, yeah, he's _giggly_ about it. So sue him.

\---

The next day, Steve just can't stop blushing as Dustin and Will pester him about who gave him the big, fat hickey on his neck.

Billy manages to keep his cool until Heather sneaks up behind him in the lunch line and whispers, "I know it was you," and even then, he only cracks a little, only giving the barest of smiles before spinning around to face her. 

"Don't think I didn't see you sneaking off to canoodle in a canoe with Robin the night before," he says, his eyebrows hitching up suggestively just to add to the sheer ridiculousness of his choice of words. 

Heather bursts out into something half like a laugh and half like a squawk; if she'd been drinking anything, she'd absolutely have done a spit take. "Canoodle in a canoe, seriously?" she asks, going for outraged but not able to stop laughing long enough to make it stick. The aggressively cheery, aggressively matching red of her lipstick and her "Lake Hawkins Camp Counsellor" t-shirt don't do much to help her case, either.

Billy shrugs. "I saw what I saw," he says, spinning back around as they reach the front of the line. He grabs a banana and chucks it onto his probably decades old, ugly, orange plastic lunch tray haphazardly. 

"Well _we_ weren't exactly trying to hide anything," Robin adds in mock helpfully and Billy knows before he turns around to see it that Robin has an arm slung casually around Heather's shoulders. "Unlike _some_ people." 

Instantly, Billy is overcome by two thoughts. The first thought being that he wishes he could be that casual, that easy about things with Steve, that he could so easily throw an arm around Steve's shoulder and the second. The second he accidentally says out loud. 

"What, so everyone knows?" 

Robin and Heather both shrug in unison and turn to look over at Steve's table that now has kids pulling up extra chairs to it. It's almost like Steve is holding court. He is, by far, the most popular counsellor here - all the kids just adore him and he absolutely eats it up. 

"Everyone but the kids, yeah," Heather says. "You two give each other heart eyes every time you're in the same room."

"What? No we don't-" Billy doesn't get to finish his sentence as Robin cuts him off with a quick glance and a, "You're doing it literally right now." 

He can't even lie. He absolutely is. 

\---

It slips out of Steve's mouth late that night in between kisses as if on accident: "I know you're waiting for someone else," and the second Billy hears it something in his icy, cold heart shatters.

Or…

Well…

He was always cold before. Before Steve showed up out of nowhere with his sunlit smile and melted him into a useless, goofy little puddle. 

He thought Steve understood that. 

But apparently he doesn't.

"You… who...what…" The words that fall gracelessly from Billy's mouth make no sense. His brain tries frantically to come up with something approaching a real sentence but before he can manage Steve slips away from him, taking two big steps back, the forest floor muffling what Billy feels should be echoing massively. 

"It's okay, you know," Steve says, that soft smile of his playing out across his lips, the one he reserves for when he's uncomfortable, the one he reserves for when he's _faking it._ "I get it. I see the way you look at other people." 

_But not the way I look at you,_ Billy's brain helpfully supplies even as his mouth remains stubbornly silent. 

"You haven't told anyone about us and I see the way you look at other people and it's okay." Steve swallows roughly and the way the moonlight through the trees is hitting him now only showcases the sadness written on his face, making Billy think that maybe what he'd said earlier actually _hadn't_ slipped out on accident but was instead on purpose. "But I don't think I can do this anymore."

Steve takes another step back and Billy wants to reach out, to stop him, to grab him by the hand and kiss him, passionate and fierce, kiss him and make him _get it._

He wants to.

But he doesn't. 

Instead he watches Steve slowly walk away and he thinks, _maybe._ He thinks, _maybe this is for the best._

Because how would it have played out, anyway? If they'd told people and Steve got to see first hand, up close and personal, the way people react to him? 

_Oh, you're dating that guy? Are you sure?_

_He looks like he has bad news written all over him, I'd watch out if I were you._

_Honey, that is a boy you play with, not a boy you bring home._

Billy's heard it all before. And usually it's even been deserved. 

Steve would've gotten tired of him eventually. 

Maybe it's better this way. 

\---

The next morning, Billy is sitting at his favorite table by the lake, eating his breakfast, _minding his own damn business, thank you very much,_ when Heather comes over and smacks him on the back of the head. 

"Ow!" He twists to face her and scowls deeply. "What the hell was that for?" 

Heather looks like she wants to kill him and matching pink lipstick and t-shirt or no, today she looks downright frightening. "You ruined my night!" she shouts.

"What?"

She slides in next to him, making the cheap, fake wood of the picnic table's bench seat squeak violently in protest at the contact with her shiny, sparkly shorts. "Last night, just before anything had the chance to get good, Steve came into Robin's cabin on the one night neither of us had to sleep in the same space as those tiny, snot-filled rugrats and he bawled all over her for hours until he passed out," she spits, her voice like venom. She's clearly very pissed, clearly thinks it's all his fault and Billy's not about to just let that slide so he shrugs and takes a long pause, plays it real nonchalant.

"Not my fault you thought it was a good idea following your girlfriend to this job this summer," he says.

This earns him a groan and another smack on the back of the head from Heather. "It would have worked out fine if you hadn't come along to ruin everything!" 

At this Billy pauses and thinks and while he thinks he tears up what's left of his toast then what's left of his napkin into increasingly smaller and smaller pieces. 

Because what is he supposed to say to that?

You're right, I should have stayed home when all my friends left for the summer?

Yeah, I should have stopped Steve from dumping me?

Yeah, I'm sorry I fell for him in the first place?

Sorry that ruined _your_ plans even though _he_ dumped _me_ and I wound up wandering around the lake alone for hours afterwards?

Billy watches as Steve walks out of his cabin, acoustic guitar strapped to his back and Dustin at his heels and Billy feels himself start to crack. This had always been his favorite table, not for the view of the lake but for the view it so often afforded him of Steve and he'd become so accustomed to eating here that he hadn't thought to eat anywhere else. 

He'll have to change that now.

"Billy, I -" Heather says. "I'm sorry, that was -" 

Billy gets to his feet, leaving his food and his tray behind. "Yeah, whatever." 

\---

This time, when Heather finds him, he's sitting on the dock with Will, fishing and thankfully not having to talk about anything more in-depth or serious than peanut butter vs. ham and egg sandwiches and d&d monsters. 

That is, until Heather opens her big fat mouth. 

"Were you gonna tell me he broke up with you or were you just gonna let me sit and stew in that wrongness indefinitely?" 

Billy doesn't answer and Will does this fully ridiculous full body blush, which is something that's completely visible due to them both sitting on the dock with their legs dangling in the water and neither of them wearing anything other than shorts. 

"Oh, of course you were," Heather says, spitting venom at him for the second time today. "You're you." 

"Hmmm… now, remind me why I'm friends with you again?" Billy asks casually, like maybe he's only asking about the weather. Being this level of cool after a comment like that isn't easy for Billy but it's his favorite trick for when he really wants to piss Heather off because nothing makes her mad like not getting the type of response she wants. 

"I'm just gonna, uh," Will stammers. "Go." 

"Good plan. Smart," Billy says. "Run before she turns her madness on you." 

Will gets up and charges out of there almost too fast for his feet to carry him just as Heather plonks herself down on the wet, slimy dock with a noise of great dissatisfaction. 

She splashes water at Billy with her feet before she says, "You're friends with me because we're both beautiful assholes." 

Billy nods. "True," he says. "Very true." He turns his face towards the slowly setting sun and pretends it warms him. Pretends the feel of it on his skin doesn't make him think of Steve. 

It doesn't work, of course. He's still as cold and as shattered as he was late last night, sunlight or no sunlight. It's like the whole world's gone dark and cold and there will never be any sunlight, any warmth, ever again and all he can think about is Steve.

And maybe that's dramatic, but then maybe he's feeling a little dramatic just right now.

"So Steve broke up with you?" Heather asks, her voice uncharacteristically soft, making it known just with that how truly concerned she is for him.

Billy shrugs and pretends he doesn't notice. "Yep." 

Heather splashes him again. He, very pointedly, does not splash back. "Wanna tell me why?" 

"Nope." 

"Billy." 

"No."

"Billy."

"No."

"Billy."

"I said _no."_

_"Billy."_

"He thinks I like other people, all right?" Billy splashes her back. "You happy now?" 

This time, Heather is the one who pauses. "No, I'm not. Did you tell him you like him? That you like only him? That you pined disgustingly for him and his pretty, perfect hair for a whole week before talking to him?" 

Billy looks down at his feet, at the water, at the busted up, broken down, tape-covered fishing rods with their baited hooks still dangling in the water from his and Will's half-assed attempt at "fishing". Anything to not look at her. "No," he says, because even though she's pointedly making fun of him, she's also not wrong. 

Heather shoves at him roughly, her long nails digging into the tanned, sun-kissed skin of his arm. "And why the hell not?" 

"Because…" Billy trails off. He doesn't know what to say. "Why bother?" 

"Why? What the - Goddamnit, Billy." Unexpectedly, she pushes him off the dock and into the water before storming off in a huff. 

He's just wringing out his hair when she storms back over, this time with Steve in tow and Steve… Steve looks… 

"Why wouldn't you just tell me?" 

...Confused? 

"I…" Billy lets out a long breath. "Why would you want me to?" 

Steve looks like he wants to push Billy back into the lake. 

"Oh my god, you're - " Heather starts but Steve silences her with a look and a wave of his hand.

"Billy," he says quietly as he sits down next to him. "Why would you think I _wouldn't_ want you to?" 

"I don't know, Stevie," Billy starts up. "You already thought I was interested in looking at anybody else -"

"Even though he's been staring at you and only you since you got here -" Heather cuts in. This time, Billy holds up a hand to silence her. 

She makes a show of biting her tongue.

Steve blushes. "Okay, true," he says. "That was dumb. I got hung up on your reputation. But I'll ask you again. Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because…" Billy pauses, the words he needs stuck just at the edge of his brain. "I got hung up on yours, too." 

"What?"

"I didn't want to ruin your reputation. That whole thing you've got where all the kids worship you, if you start dating me, then…" 

"God, you're such a pair of idiots. Really, you're dumb, he's dumb. You're both so lucky you have me to help you figure shit out," Heather pipes up again and this time, Billy shares a look with Steve.

Without talking they both get to their feet and stomp over to her, Billy grabbing her legs just as Steve grabs her shoulders. She kicks and flails and screams but it does her no good. They walk to the edge of the dock and dump her in the water.

After they're done, Steve holds his hand out to Billy. "You… wanna take a walk around the lake and talk this out on our own?" 

Billy nods. "Yeah," he says. "I'd like that."


End file.
